An Important Day

A short while ago, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on two counts. Of course, had they chosen to, they had the grounds for bringing at least five more counts but they were probably more judicious than I would have tended to be had I been in Nancy Pelosi’s position. This is an important day because it was the first step in attempting to re-secure American democracy. The Republican Party, by its elected representatives in Congress, have chosen to subvert our democracy in their supposed political self-interest and the interests of certain sub-groups they represent (e.g. certain wealthy White business people).  This should be considered an outrage by every American who considers themselves a patriot because, after all, depending our government of laws is what patriotism consists of… not attempting to keep out immigrants, not in encouraging white supremacists and other fascist-leaning individuals and entities, not in working to grow the wealth gap between a small minority and the vast majority of Americans, not….a host of other things the Republican Party stands for and works for. Patriotism does not lie in doing the work of Putin–I have not been acting tongue inches when I tag the Republicans as the “Russian Republicans.” Is there any good reason not to think they have somewhat been bought by Putin, similar to how one of their most supportive constituents, the NRA, has been?

As I wrote above, this is a first step. The next logical steps do not look promising, which may mean we essentially need to skip right by those and focus on the next opportunity, the 2020 elections. I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the Ds will need to nominate someone not so easily, and wrongly,  identified as “socialist” in order to attract the vote of people like the Rs who wrote an Op-ED in the NY Times today stressing the need to stop Trump. As much as I believe that many of the policy ideas espoused by Elizabeth Warren are absolutely the way for this country to go, we may need to rout the Rs and stop the demolition of the country before earnestly attempting to get it exactly where it needs to be.  An approximation of that may be all we can go for now.  Having concluded this does not get me any closer to know ing who I should support as the candidate who can most assuredly win the Presidency–I don’t think its clear yet and I am not sure that person is even in the race right now. What I also know is that as much effort as must go on to secure the presidency must be equalled in attempting to turn the Senate and solidify the House.